HBM058: Kelly Is Cold
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Kelly Stratton. Photo by Jeff Emtman
It was early in the morning of New Years Day and Kelly had just bought a purse-load of psychedelic mushrooms from Laramie Wyoming's local "druggist." Kelly handed them out to the assembled company and took some himself. He felt a bit apathetic about the world. He was wearing thin shoes,, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. But when he went outside to look at the stars, he realized what he wanted more than anything else in the world...a book on combinatorics.
Suddenly, Kelly found himself elsewhere, in a wavy and confusing reality, holding a large rock and looking through the windows of Coe Library. He was thinking about the math books that lived there on the third floor. He was very cold and had a decision to make.
Kelly lives in Seattle today. He cares about math, people and bikes. His favorite book on combinatorics is Herbert S. Wilf's generatingfunctionology, which is available for free.
Music: The Black Spot, Flowers
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"Kissing Spheres" are an application of combinatorics that are useful in constructing 20 sided polyhedrons. Courtesy of Robert Bradshaw of Wikimedia Commons.
Calculation of Pascal's Triangle. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
It is possible to cut a rectangular cake into 15 equal sized pieces with just 4 cuts. These are called "cake numbers." Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.